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wednesday May 1, 2013
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Alford haggles on buyout terms Ex-head coach offers a fifth of contract’s stated amount by J.R. Oppenheim
assistantsports@dailylobo.com @JROppenheim April 29 has come and gone, and Steve Alford has not paid the $1 million contract buyout the University says the former men’s basketball head coach must pay. In an e-mail acquired by the Daily Lobo Tuesday morning, Alford offered to pay $200,000 to satisfy the buyout clause of his previous contract, stating his final day of employment was March 30. Alford left UNM to take the same position at UCLA. Prior to his departure, Alford and UNM agreed to a new 10-year contract that could have given the coach up to $2 million per year after incentives. The terms of that contract, which was due to take effect on April 1, required Alford to pay a $1 million buyout if he left UNM before 2015. The University recognizes Alford’s March 30 announcement to leave UNM as a contractually required 30-day notice and his tenure ended April 29. Based on that timetable, UNM argues Alford’s new contract took effect
on April 1 and the $1 million buyout must be paid. Alford disagrees, saying the March 18 term sheet did not come into effect and he “never reached agreement on a final written employment contract including those terms.” He said his resignation was effective March 30, he performed no services for UNM after that date, and he is not entitled to salary for services rendered after March 30. He said he would not accept salary payment, unpaid deferred compensation or incentive salary. “My contract with UNM provides that if I terminated the contract before March 31, 2013, I would agree to pay the sum of $200,000,” Alford told UNM in the e-mail. “I herby offer that amount to UNM.” Alford’s e-mail does not mention the 30-day notice needed to terminate the contract, which appears in Paragraph 7 of his earlier contract. Associate University Counsel Kimberly Bell said in a statement that Alford has not made any payment toward the buyout, but
Juan Labreche/@LabrecheMode / Daily Lobo Steve Alford, former head coach of UNM men’s basketball, stands for the national anthem prior to the MWC Tournament Championship game in Las Vegas, Nevada. Alford is now contesting UNM’s demand that he pay $1 million as per the buyout clause in his contract with UNM athletics. that he does, in fact, owe UNM the buyout from the latter contract. She said she received the e-mail from Alford late Monday afternoon.
“The notice requirement makes it clear that Coach Alford’s April 1, 2013 contract is in effect and that his buyout obligation is $1 million,” she said.
An e-mail to UCLA sports information assistant Alex Timiraos seeking comment from Alford or UCLA was not returned.
Lobo Village adjusts fees Engineers granted internship funding by Elizabeth Cleary and Jamillah Wilcox news@dailylobo.com
Despite offering a multitude of new incentives for prospective residents, Lobo Village and its parent company, American Campus Communities, remain hush-hush on what that means in terms of the south campus community’s vacancy. Over the past several weeks, ads that offer $50 gift certificates to students who sign leases with Lobo Village have appeared in the Daily Lobo. The ads also say students will save $205 in fees upon signing up and that summer and short-term leases are now available. Short-term leases last for the 10 months of the school year, while full-time leases last for an entire year. Lobo Village representatives have also been tabling for a number of weeks in the SUB with a hot pink gorilla mascot. Lobo Village is an apartment complex for UNM students that is owned and operated by American Campus Communities (ACC), a company that operates student housing complexes around the country. Lobo Village opened in the fall 2011 semester. The following year, ACC opened Casas del Rio on main campus, which offers dorm-style housing. According to a Daily Lobo
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report from March 2011, the monthly rent per bedroom in Lobo Village at the time was $499 per month, in addition to a $75 application fee, a $150 damage deposit, a $125 transportation fee, a monthly electric bill and undisclosed fees for late payment of rent. But according to Lobo Village’s website, rent in the housing complex is $539 per month with a limited-time $25 application fee. Lobo Village’s website does not specify how those additional fees have changed between then and now, and ACC has since enacted a policy that mandates Lobo Village and Casas del Rio employees not speak to the media. All media inquiries must go directly to ACC’s corporate offices. A statement from ACC’s Leasing Manager David Conway said even though short-term leases are offered to new residents, Lobo Village works with students who need to opt out of their contracts because they intend to graduate. “You would have a higher rate, but you would essentially be paying the same total contract amount as the full-time lease,” Conway said. “What we’re finding is some people want that option for graduation.” Archived editions of the Daily Lobo indicate Lobo Village has
never before advertised incentives to sign leases. As of press time, ACC had still not reached the Daily Lobo with regard to questions on this issue. A number of classified ads also appear in the Daily Lobo placed by students who are looking for other students to take over the leases they currently have. Bailey Wilder, a current resident of Lobo Village, said she will not renew her lease because she feels the rules there are overbearing. “I thought it was going to be a little bit more relaxed and that the atmosphere would be grown-up college students, not still-under-restriction college students,” she said. “I feel like I’m being babysat.” Wilder said that at one point during the fall semester, she had no water in her apartment for two days. “We called and they never directed us toward anyone who was upper management,” she said. But Wilder said she won’t try to terminate her contract early because of the steep fees involved with doing so. “The fee to dis-enroll with Lobo Village is seriously as much as you would be paying if you stayed your whole lease,”
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$2 million goes toward retaining STEM undergrads by Rebecca Gonzales news@dailylobo.com
UNM’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) is working to provide paid internships for the majority of participating students. The one-year-old program will have 60 of its 72 participants participate in paid engineering internships with 25 different institutions this summer. Participating institutions include Los Alamos National Laboratories, Sandia National Laboratories and Fiore Industries. Susan Buffington, the UNM School of Engineering internship coordinator, said the internships will increase retention rates of engineering students. “The purpose of this program is getting students into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors and keeping them there,” Buffington said. “That is what NSF (the National Science Foundation) cares about — it wants to see students in these majors graduating, [so] it is targeted toward students earlier in their program.” Buffington said the number of available paid internships to STEM students has stayed the same since last summer. The internships are only for undergraduate engineering majors.
Funding for the internships came from a $2 million grant STEP received from the NSF upon the program’s foundation in February 2012, she said. Buffington said the NSF grant is competitive and only given to a few institutions annually. She said the grant is intended to extend mentorship, conference and internship opportunities to students majoring in STEM fields nationwide. Buffington said the grant money will be able to pay for up to 75 eightweek internships per year over five years. She said UNM hopes to continue the program with the help of donations after the five-year duration of the grant, and that several companies that hosted student interns last year have already committed to donations to STEP in the future. “It is an easier sell to companies when we pay for the students’ internships,” she said. “Last summer, over half the students who went out (to intern for companies) were retained and the companies kept them working during the school year.” Tariq Khraishi, assistant dean of mechanical engineering and the principal investigator for the NSF grant, said the STEP program is beneficial for companies and students alike.
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